A Dream Kept In the Woods
by jasmine melt
Summary: Oneshot. An AU Sasuhina story about redemption, patience, and grief. / Sasuke dreams that love can heal war wounds. Hinata dreams that war can be tucked neatly behind. Neither dream lasts long, but the shadows that are left behind are worth everything they have.


**A/N:** Sasuhina AU. Also, if Sasuke was more human when it came to trauma. Please read and review!

* * *

 _A Dream Kept In the Woods_

* * *

"A dream," he said, "flowing into an everlasting night."

"Death?" she asked timidly, her fingers grazing his jaw underneath his ear.

"Perhaps," he answered. His eyes traced the long shadows of her eyelashes, and he leaned in to press his forehead against hers.

"Then dream no more," she whispered; the stars sang a shrill note above them into the vast expanse.

* * *

Fog hung claustrophobically over the city, and the traffic was even more dismal than usual. His eyes scanned the long boulevard and its pedestrians – men with their hands stuffed into their jean pockets, power-walking through the light drizzle, and women clutching on to their scarves or to the lapels of their coats, bags bouncing by hips at their brisk pace.

He saw her seeking shelter under the roof of a street vendor cart, talking rapidly in the phone and ignoring the street vendor's glares.

They made eye contact. Her face brightened, and she came over to the sad curb that he sat on, offering him a sip of her coffee – probably a caramel latte with a sprinkle of cinnamon and whipped cream, as always.

"Thanks," he said, "but no thanks. I'm on a job right now."

"Are you?" she asked with a small smile, intending to say that she already knew that. "It won't hurt to take a break."

"Yes, it would."

"No one's watching you, Sasuke. You're safe."

"No one's safe."

Her smile turned sad. She sat down next to him, even as a reckless cab driver swerved dangerously close to running over their feet.

"I promise. You're safe."

He stared at her again, and she stared right back. Neither spoke for a long moment.

"Where was dinner again?"

"At Sakura and Naruto's. Seven o'clock. Don't forget this time."

"I won't," he said, and he meant it.

* * *

Seven years ago

When Hinata was twenty, she packed her bags and found refuge in Temari's apartment. It was shabby and cramped but clean. Temari took pride in the worn carpet and the noisy laundry machine and the long flowerpot hanging from the narrow balcony. She didn't complain when Hinata's possessions took up more than the allotted space, and she didn't complain when Hinata broke down the first night and nearly vomited over Temari's favorite piece of furniture, the coffee table with a pattern of scratches over the glass and the chipped leg.

Hinata felt the rejection of her father profoundly. The Hyuuga estate was hoarfrost. A part of her resented the advice Kurenai had given her years ago. Another part resented her self for listening. The biggest part resented her inability to reconcile the differences between her father's vision and her own. There should have been a way, she thought, there should have a been way to gather the frayed ends of their unfinished conversations, of traded disapproving glances, of bent pushpins overused from repeated presses of reminder notes relaying what must be done no matter the cost.

Hinata swore off alcohol after she knocked the flowerpot down shattering to the ground floor below, and Temari – bright hot-blooded Temari, who had bitten out death threats for lesser crimes and had loved the only semblance of a garden the apartment could have – gave her only a mournfully disappointed look.

So she settled for the mundane routine of everyday tasks. Of part-time jobs in grocery stores and clerk offices, of weeding elementary school gardens for community service. Hinata's brain went unexhausted, but the overexertion of her body was enough to keep her dreams simmering on low for a while, at least until she could sort out her thoughts and her priorities.

Her father still extended a hand for her through Hanabi, who texted her frequently and reminded her that her position was still untaken. Of course Hanabi would. She was bossy and callous at times, but she cared for Hinata through and through.

In the end, she realized she could have none of it. At least, not at the moment. When Temari passed her the pamphlet, Hinata held it with the hands of a dying man clutching on to his last hope.

A few months after that, she packed her bags and headed down to Fort Konoha.

* * *

There was some sort of poetic justice to the fact that Naruto, the first of their battalion to get settled and have kids, broke down when he saw Sasuke standing at the door. The man who always strove to move forward, finally halted momentarily by his past.

Sasuke waited until Naruto made a move to punch him and was prepared to get his fighting stance ready for a spontaneous spar when Naruto slung an arm around Sasuke's neck and hugged him instead.

He could practically hear Hinata's smile folding from behind him.

Naruto was bawling now.

"You _idiot._ Why did you disappear after the war? Do you know how long we've been searching for you?"

Sasuke patted him on the back unsurely, as if he was dealing with someone else's strange child.

"Sasuke," Sakura's voice was surprisingly soft. Much softer than usual. "Sasuke, we missed you. When Hinata gave us that call, we were speechless."

From behind Sakura, Sasuke saw one pink-haired boy with blue eyes and one blonde girl with green eyes peering curiously from behind their mother's legs.

Has this been what I was missing? Sasuke wondered briefly, watching the scene unfold around him and within him, eyes half-dazedly roaming from person to person in the room.

Later, in the guest bedroom Sakura and Naruto had set up for them, Hinata took his hand and traced lazy circles on his palm.

"That wasn't too bad, was it?" she asked, and though her voice was gentle as it always was, her eyes betrayed a glint of triumph.

"Perhaps," he answered, and he leant in closer to kiss her forehead.

* * *

Five years ago

When Hinata was twenty-two, the world was falling to pieces.

Itachi brushed her arm warningly. Hinata forced herself to focus again on the task at hand. Her vision wavered between swarms of red and green. The poison was slowly working up her leg. For a terrifyingly surreal moment, she thought her heart was going to implode. She imagined the mangled mash of chambers and arteries, the dying pulse resting limply against her ribcage. She blinked heavily and tried to focus again.

Orochimaru was watching. He was always watching. Hinata couldn't afford to mess up. She had come so far. To slip up now would botch the entire mission. She had to do this.

She took the dagger in her shaking hands, dipped it in the inkwell full of venom, and continued etching the insignia around her ankle. The faction demanded utmost loyalty and strength of mind as well as strength of body. Her arms felt ready to give way; her fingers trembled so that she had to fist them often to hide such blatant vulnerability.

When she was finally done, she wrapped the apportioned bandage around the fresh wound. Kabuto, observing clinically, was satisfied with the self-mutilation and pressed a thin vial into her hands. Hinata was too fatigued to shudder at his lingering touch.

She pressed the vial to her lips. She didn't feel the effect of the antidote for several minutes. Time moved excruciatingly slowly. Itachi couldn't help her here, not with so many eyes at the induction. She was on her own. She would have to be on her own. Itachi had helped her up to this point, but from now on, she'd be working in an entirely different sector. Crossing paths often would not be wise.

What am I doing here? How long do I have to stay? The questions had repeated themselves often into something like a mantra in Hinata's head when she first arrived, but now, she had asked herself the same thing for so long that the words had lost all meaning and were only exoskeletons rotting at the back of her throat.

Hard-baked shells congealing.

She couldn't disguise the gag.

* * *

Hinata was always patient when Sasuke retreated into his shell. His hands curled into fists, and he became tense, suspicious, ready to fight. He snarled at Hinata, told her that he didn't need her pity, that he knew what she was up to, that she could lie to the entire world but it wouldn't affect him, never never never.

She waited until the tension drained out of his shoulders, and she would get the first aid kit out and disinfect the cuts his nails made in his palms.

"Why do you stay?" he asked one day when he was particularly ashamed of the things he'd growled at her.

"Why do you think?" she shot back, with a surprisingly stubborn set of her jaw as she dabbed some ointment on his cuts.

* * *

"A dream," he said, "flowing into an everlasting night."

"Another one?" she asked drowsily, pale eyes blinking up at the buttery filtered light on the ceiling.

He grunted, suddenly taciturn.

"You're quite the poet lately, aren't you?"

"I'm not," he said grouchily.

"You are," she said, turning to her side to gaze up at him. "Everything you say comes alive with whole new meanings of their own. You should consider writing a book."

"I don't think so," he said, turning away from her.

"Sasuke."

A pause. A spike of fear. How long would she endure for him?

"What?" he said eventually.

"How do you feel? I mean, how you do you _really_ feel?"

He dug his nose into the sheets.

"I feel like staying home today."

That seemed to be enough for Hinata. She pressed a kiss to his shoulder and climbed out of bed.

"Where are you going?" he asked, trying not to sound plaintive.

"To work. Like always. You know you can call me if you need me."

He glimpsed her face as she plodded to the bathroom and breathed a sigh of relief into his pillow.

* * *

Three years ago

When Hinata was twenty-four, her world was eclipsed in shadow. It was the darkest of the darkest of shadows, a penetrating blackness of her mind. Her hopes and her fears were enveloped in this disturbing state of reality, until she could no longer distinguish between what she had once loved and despised. The sickly sweet smell of blood continuously wafted from the grayish-pink scars on her ankle.

They had awarded her the highest medal a war veteran could be bestowed. Her father welcomed her back with open arms. He was finally proud of her, of her courage and strength, of the way she had elevated the Hyuuga name. Journalists wrote story after heroic story about her inextinguishable valor and unmatched wisdom.

There was nothing left for her here.

Hinata spent her days quietly sitting in one of the chairs on the veranda at the Hyuuga estate, watching the birds land on the trees and go about their daily routines. She preferred it when no one disturbed her and told the family so at dinner one night, in a tone so frosty that even her father took a few moments to process with mouth slightly agape.

So passed the days of the first month after coming home from the war.

When the rage and the self-pity set in, Hinata was handling a ceramic teapot. The china didn't crack, thankfully, when it hit the table, but hot tea spilled over her lap, and with the yelp of pain rushed in the anger.

She could hardly contain it. She didn't know what came over her. Her mind and her senses were drenched in acute chaos. She sent the entire tea set tumbling into the grass with wide sweeps of her arms and ran across the garden barefoot all the way to the ivy-covered walls, where she slammed her fists again and again against the stone, until the skin of her hands peeled bloodily away.

 _"LET ME OUT."_

A few servants rushed to her side and tried to hold her arms still.

 _"GET ME OUT OF HERE."_

Hanabi tried to hold her still. Neji tried to hold her still. Still, she continued to pound her fists against the crimson-flecked stone.

Tears finally leaked out of her eyes. Finally. Finally.

Hinata let the first wave of emotions carry her down, down until she didn't have the energy to do anything else anymore. She fell to her knees amidst ruined shrubs and kicked up soil. She sobbed so strongly that a detached part of her wondered if it was possible that she, of all people, was making such pitiful sounds.

"I'm free," she muttered wildly, staring at her mangled hands. "I'm free I'm free I'm free."

* * *

The wedding could have gone better.

It started off fine. Hinata, in moonstones and white lace, walking down the aisle, arms linked with Neji, since her father had refused to attend. He, in a black suit with the Uchiha fan subtly monogrammed on the corner of the suit pocket, relatively calm and ready to get the ceremony over with.

They proclaimed their vows. They kissed. They sliced the cake. They embraced crying friends – well, Hinata did, and Sasuke let himself be embraced.

But just as the wedding was about to end, Sasuke's mouth ran dry and beads of sweat began forming on his neck.

Not now, he thought, but it made no difference.

From the corner of his eye, he saw that Hinata was trapped in a conversation with his mother.

He started breathing heavily and flexing his hands. He needed to leave the throng of people and get some air. Dizzily, he searched for an exit.

A firm hand looped through his arm and guided him outside. Finally, when the decorated courtyard was a distance behind them, he turned to Sakura and thanked her curtly.

"It's no problem," she said. She offered a small smile and turned back to return to the wedding, allowing him the space that he needed.

He stayed there even until the guests slowly streamed out, crouching on the balls of his feet and leaning his forehead against the cool marble.

"You okay?" Hinata asked, crouching down next to him.

"Yeah," he murmured. Feels nice here.

"Your mother and father were looking for you. I – I told them about, you know."

"Oh." He turned to look at her, lifting his head from the wall. "What did they say?"

"That they suspected as much."

Hinata stood back up and offered a hand. He eyed the wedding band for a split second before he grabbed her wrist and pulled her down. She let out a surprised sound at the sudden hug, then relaxed against him.

"You know," she said quietly into his ear, "we all love you very much. Regardless of what you think of yourself."

"I know," he said, holding her tightly.

* * *

One night, his eyes snapped open from a different nightmare, and he began to shiver uncontrollably. Eventually, Hinata stirred from sleep and automatically wrapped her arms around him, stroking his hair and softly shushing the sobs he pressed into her shoulder.

When the hiccups subsided, he said half-resentfully, "If Itachi was still alive, you would have fallen in love with him and not me."

Hinata froze. She pushed herself an arm's length apart and with her hands still on his shoulders, stared at him. She looked so concerned, so _worried_ , it made Sasuke almost want to take back what he had just said. Still, he stayed silent and stared back.

Finally, she let go of him and sat up, spine hunched, staring fiercely at her thin-boned hands with their strangely shaped callouses, like a statue hewn from marble, looking so breakable that Sasuke was afraid to so much as breathe harshly.

"I have to tell you something," she said, and the lack of inflection in her words scared him as much as the significance of the words did. "But first, let me brew you some tea."

She exited the bedroom, and Sasuke felt terror branching through every nerve. He despised himself for opening his mouth, for breaking the first true peace he had felt in such a long time, and above all, for making Hinata stare so intensely around her that she realized why she shouldn't have married him, shouldn't have trusted him.

She came back with a cup of steaming kava tea. He took it, barely repressing trembling fingers and scalding his tongue after slurping it too slowly.

"I've known you," she said with her back against the headrest, "far longer than you've known me."

She had been in the military as well. In fact, she used to be a highly-regarded analyst and a codebreaker. Sasuke had heard of the "farsighted" Hyuuga before and had always chalked Hinata up to be merely a distant relative, not the legend herself.

She had been in charge of gaining access to the maps of the Orichimaru mission, the very mission that had just about screwed Sasuke over.

Why didn't you ever say anything? he was about to ask, but what came out instead was, "So you loved me out of pity?"

"Let me finish, Sasuke," Hinata said in the sternest voice he had ever heard from her, and he reluctantly clamped his mouth shut before a string of other insecurities could flow out.

She was only supposed to do her part and access and organize the necessary information the mission required for successful completion, but things got complicated when the military found out that Itachi Uchiha would also be involved in the opposing side.

The lieutenant general himself told Hinata that the main mission would be postponed for now and asked her to participate in a pre-mission espionage job.

Even with the tea, Sasuke could not stop his hands from shaking now. To even imagine Hinata crossing into Orichimaru's factions and navigating through the competitive ranks and brutal ceremonies – there were just so _many_ things that could have gone wrong.

"How?" he demanded. "How could they have let you go there? You didn't sign up for that kind of mission, and you weren't some insignificant pawn they could sacrifice. Why did you say yes?"

Hinata breathed slowly through her nose.

"Itachi sent a difficult code that said he would help us if we watched over you. He knew Orochimaru was on the path of utter destruction, and even though it was too late for him to get out, he wanted to end the war and keep you alive while he still could."

"So you _believed_ him? He could have been baiting you!"

"I'd considered that. But there was no doubt about it when he also sent along a detailed plan of Orochimaru's next attack. We ignored it, thinking it was only a trap, but the plan was carried out to a T. Orochimaru was very thorough. He sent us more plans and elaborate blueprints after that. We could have prevented more casualties, but we waited to make sure he wasn't lying to us."

"That doesn't mean that you could trust him so easily. It could've all been an elaborate ruse—"

"It could have been, yes. But I decided to take that risk. _I_ did, Sasuke."

She was face to face with him now, and her pale eyes in the moonlight seemed to emanate the same light. The strength of her values and the purity of her heart – they burned into Sasuke to the marrow of his bones.

She continued.

"You know what it is like between my father and me. He had always been on the oppressive side, and though Neji joining the army was an honor, my joining the army as a mere analyst only brought shame."

"But you were amazing—"

"What others thought of me did not sway my father's view of me. In the end, my acceptance – no, perhaps it is better to say my _insistence_ on taking the mission was a way for me to redeem myself and become a worthy Hyuuga heiress.

"In any case, I agreed to keep a watchful eye on you if he would help us infiltrate Orichimaru's factions. And he did. I was brought on a forged recommendation so close to genuine that even the snake man himself hadn't suspected a thing. Itachi helped me survive the most grueling aspects of the factions, and he told me a lot about you."

Sasuke felt bile rising in his throat. Everything was bitter. He knew what was coming – she would tell him that he had only been a chore to her, a little complication in a much more important matter. He couldn't look at her anymore, shame and disappointment blooming in his throat.

"And then?" he asked hoarsely, hating himself for asking, for having even a tiny seed of hope that none of this was possible.

"And then the real mission began. By then, I knew enough of the place to lay out more concrete strategies. I was able to sneak out and meet up with the broadcast operator and the other radiomen and share more specific instructions. I – I overheard the conversations among your division."

She halted. She didn't have to go further. He remembered. He remembered every word. Every scream. Every garbled end followed by white noise. His hands shook so much that the lukewarm tea sputtered and spilled over his hands and into the sheets. Hinata leaned forward, ignoring his flinch at her closeness, and took the cup away.

"Go on," he rasped. "And then?"

"I didn't fall in love with you until long after the mission was over, until long after the war was over. By then, I had earned favor in my father's eyes again and was welcomed back into society as the new IT branch manager of Hyuuga Inc.

"I saw a news article one day about how veterans of the war were faring, and I remembered my promise to Itachi. It took me weeks to track you down, even with the amount of information I had, but I finally found you in the old warehouse on 81st Street."

He remembered that too. Prior to that, he had been very meticulous with covering his tracks and making sure no one could find him – at least, no one from his past. The day Hinata walked into his makeshift bunker, he had been contemplating suicide for the third time that week.

"I was only a way to pay back your debt?" he asked hollowly, dreading to hear her response.

"In the beginning, yes. I tried to help ease you back into society, make sure you were finding a healthy routine. But the more I spent time with you, the more apparent it was to me that I didn't stay because I was obligated to you. I could have left a long time ago. I stayed – I stay – I _married_ you, Sasuke, because I can't imagine life without you."

"I don't believe you." Suspicion flashed in his eyes. "I don't believe you. There was nothing I could offer you. You – you didn't fall in love with me. You fell in love with the idea of fixing a broken man."

Hinata hissed impatiently.

"Do you need me to spell it out for you? You act as if you're the only broken one here. I barely kept my head over the water in Orochimaru's factions. I've seen my share of atrocities. _Sasuke,_ what do you need to see before you understand?"

He stared at her impassively for a strange stretch of time. Finally, his face crumpled.

"My brother," he said, flinging the bedcover off of him and locking himself in the bathroom.

* * *

The next day, they drove to the Uchiha gravesite. It was neatly tended to by a gardener whose name always seemed to change when they visited. The upkeep of the gravesite was the only thing Sasuke used his family's old wealth for. He used his veteran's stipend and his odd part-time jobs to help pay his half of the bills. The rest of the Uchiha fortune was locked away in several bank accounts and bullion.

Sasuke was reluctant to move from the passenger seat at first. Wordlessly, Hinata tangled her fingers in his and squeezed. He was trembling a little again. After a long moment, Sasuke sighed and said, "Alright then."

Itachi's body had been blown to bits and very little had been recovered so instead of a complete grave, he had a small granite tablet in memoriam. Even though he had joined the enemy's side, he had still been an Uchiha. Sasuke had at least made sure of that.

"I think I'll go admire the hydrangeas," said Hinata softly.

He watched her amble down the path to the far end of the site, sandals crunching quietly in the gravel and swan gray dress flapping carelessly around her knees.

"See how considerate she is?" he mumbled when she was out of hearing. "See how thoughtful and patient and warm – you always wanted those qualities in a girlfriend, didn't you? How about this. She's my wife. My _wife_. I married her. She married me. And, it turns out, she knew you. For months, before you died. And you knew her."

Sasuke took one shuddering breath.

"The day you died, the day I saw you for the last time, was the worst in my life. I hated you for betraying your own family and taking off like that. I had accumulated so much rage. I wanted revenge. I only wanted to take you down. And to find out, right as I'm about to put a bullet between your eyes, that you were only trying to protect me—"

Here, he glared darkly at the stone in front of him.

"I hated you even more for that. And I still hate you. You didn't even give me a choice. Even if I were in danger, it would have been nice if you had at least been there."

He paused, lost in thought.

"That day, we lost so many men. And many of those that survived lost many limbs. I was lucky. Goddamn lucky, I know that, I think about it all the time, and then I find out that Hinata was there too? She was there struggling with the rest of us, except for months instead of just one day; and she was there to hear me cry when I lost you; and she was there when I couldn't stop screaming when it was finally over."

His voice was cold now, inflectionless.

"I fucking hate this, Itachi. I don't know what to think. I don't know how to feel. I finally came out of the shadows, and it feels good to be in the light again, but sometimes, I don't know how long I can handle it, and I don't know how long she can handle me. She shouldn't be handling _me_ , not when I'm such a liability to her. She's going to be miserable. I wonder, _what have I done_ , but even though I feel guilty as hell, I don't want to leave. "

Birds chirped in the silence that followed. He covered his eyes with his hand.

"Why aren't you here? Goddammit."

He leaned against the granite now, gripping the rock so tightly that his fingers went numb.

"I want – no, I _need_ closure. Tell me I'm doing the right thing. That's all I need. Tell me that I'm not screwing anyone else over again."

His voice had softened to a whisper. A feather could have knocked it over.

Again, only birds.

Really, what had he been expecting? A sign? A passing wind to offer the answers in his ear? He wasn't even sure if he believed in the afterlife. What else could have happened but this?

Disappointment blooming in his chest like a gunshot wound, and bitterness at having failed to complete his purpose here, Sasuke crouched down next to the grave and stared down at the gravel path.

He sat there for a while, unable to come up with any probable solution, and he ground his teeth as he tried to fight off his despair.

"You ready to go home?" Hinata asked, suddenly beside him. He must not have heard her footsteps.

"I guess," he said sullenly. She took his hand again and pulled him up to his feet.

"It seems like you're still feeling down. How about we go to Naruto and Sakura?"

"I doubt those two can help," he said sourly.

"You never know," said Hinata with a small encouraging smile. "We're going at eight, okay?"

* * *

As expected, Sakura and Naruto were no help. At first, Naruto thought the problem was their sex life and began rambling excitedly about viable options they could take to, you know, _spice things up_ , with Sakura giving her husband an amused stare, until Hinata shook her head, cheeks tinged pink, and firmly told him that he had misunderstood.

"Yeah. Our sex life is great," said Sasuke, even though he was partially lying because truthfully, he was sometimes too anxious to properly respond to his wife, but that was something he would never admit out loud, especially to someone like Naruto.

"Well then, what's the problem?" asked Naruto, furrowing his brows.

"I think the problem," Sakura intervened before anyone could respond, "is that Sasuke is having a hard time moving on."

"From what?" asked Naruto, confused. Sakura smacked him upside the head and glared at him.

"What do you think? We talked about this after their wedding, remember?"

"What – _oh_."

Sasuke couldn't handle this anymore. He refused to talk to them about this. He could barely tell Hinata – why would he ever tell them?

They were your teammates, a voice protested inside, but he ignored it and wordlessly stood and went for the door.

"Sasuke!" Naruto called. "Sasuke, don't leave. We can figure this out together."

But Sasuke was already out the door. He heard Hinata muttering apologies on his behalf and running after him.

"Sasuke." There was a gossamer kind of quality to her voice, as if it would take flight any moment if the wind was strong enough. He wondered if she would disappear if he pretended he didn't hear her. "Sasuke, what is it that you want? I thought you wanted to overcome this, but you keep rejecting any help that comes near. You can't isolate yourself forever."

Sasuke whirled around on his heels abruptly and glowered at her, though the moon reflecting off her skin and her eyes made it difficult to look at her.

"Watch me," he snarled. How dare she _assume_ that he didn't want to get over this, how _dare_ she when all this time she had never bothered to tell him the truth.

Hurt crossed her features. She stared at him with teary eyes. He stared back, his own eyes moist because goddammit, why was the moon so bright around her. They stood like this for a long time, neither willing to yield or to shed a tear first. Finally, Hinata sighed.

"I guess this was the only way after all," she said quietly. She blinked a little, wiped the dampness with her sleeve, and stepped forward to take his hand.

He wanted to rip it away, to fully demonstrate how much he hated that she had lied to him, but his eyes hurt too much and he was too tired and he just wanted to be back home. His hand remained limp.

"You said I was safe," he said hoarsely.

"You don't trust me," she said sadly. He didn't respond.

But he didn't let go either.

* * *

That night, Hinata gave him a box, unassuming in shape and color, and worn white at the corners. He knew it was important because she had cradled it in her arms lovingly before she set it gently in front of him.

They sat together on the bed, side by side. She opened the lid and pulled out a velvet-encased photo album.

"You want to know everything? I'll show you everything," she said.

* * *

He listened to her commentary as he gazed from newspaper clipping to clipping, caressing the pages as he turned them, until the dawn lifted rose and gold over their pale feet, their locked hands, their exhausted faces.

Before she was the IT manager of Hyuuga Inc., she had discovered something important. Life was an indomitable cage. A masterpiece of woven lies and buried secrets, an inescapable nightmare drawn by tattered sails and carried by an unpitying wind. This period of her life was when her cynicism quietly sharpened and her will to live sharply quieted.

During those days, there was only one way she could find respite.

He was intimate with each and every short story nestled in the box. He had to be. He had written them under the pseudonym 'Itachi' and had sent them to a moderately popular press. He'd acquired some fans and some critics. Nothing big ever came out of it, or so he'd thought.

He stopped writing when a wave of frustration hit that no one was really listening. What purpose was there to write if only he could understand the nuances between isolation and solitude?

"Do you understand now?" she asked, voice hoarse, eyes bleary but staring intently at him for a response.

He nodded, and he closed the albums, put them back in the box, and gave it back to her without sparing her a glance. He found that he still couldn't look at her. His guilt was up to his throat. He couldn't say much, wouldn't say much. He felt that his soul would leave him if he so much as parted his lips.

"Then let's go to sleep. Thank goodness it's a Sunday."

She rubbed her face with her palms and crawled to her side of the bed. Sasuke mechanically went to his own side and stared up at the ceiling with dry, sore eyes. The light grew wider and wider, slowly filling the room and illuminating specks of dust drifting from wall to wall.

He closed his eyes. He saw the faces of Hinata and her family and her friends and then he saw his own face, what used to be his family, what few friends he still had left. His mind was overworked but still churning restlessly, and he was making connections, finding parallels, seeking comfort in how similar they were, how right they were, they _were_ , for each other.

He turned to his side and sought Hinata's legs with his own legs, Hinata's hands with his own hands. He draped an arm around her shoulders and imagined that as the sun rose, the light would blaze so brightly their flesh would melt together and mold them into a new imperfect person.

A dream, he thinks, flowing into an everlasting night.

The sunshine crept into his ears and sang mute melodies of rebirth and warmth until they reverberated in the walls of the room and of his mind, until all that was left in his thoughts was the gentle, steady beat of synchronized pulse.


End file.
